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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27911467">holding on and sense is gone</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/escherzo/pseuds/escherzo'>escherzo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cunnilingus, Episode 109, F/M, Grinding, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Strip Poker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:00:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,904</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27911467</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/escherzo/pseuds/escherzo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Now you've gotta teach me how to shoot your bow.” Sasha says, and Grizzop's heart does four different complicated things at once, the combination of them all unexpectedly painful, and he tries very hard not to think about how wonderful it would be to show her. To give her that little connection to Artemis. “I don't like bosses” or no—maybe she'd get it then. She pauses, and her eyes light up. “Oh, wait. Bet your bow.” </p><p>Oh, dear. “Ah, um.” Grizzop fidgets in place. It's not like he's explicitly attached to <i>this</i> bow, and the thought of it makes her look positively gleeful, her eyes dancing with delight like she does when she's found a puzzle to solve, or managed to steal her way into somewhere she's not really supposed to be without anyone noticing. He really, really shouldn't, but. “Um.” </p><p>“No?” she asks, and her grin widens. Practically a dare. “Alright, then. If you don't have anything else to bet...” She pauses, visibly thinks about it, pauses again. “Strip poker?”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam/Sasha Racket</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>52</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>holding on and sense is gone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I was listening to 109 and the thought of other directions the card game could have gone if Wilde had taken a little longer hit me like a semi and I had to immediately go and write the proceedings. </p><p>(I don't actually know how to play poker. Roll with me here.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Well, I'm out of arrows,” Grizzop says, trying to suppress a sigh as he looks at the stack of them piled up haphazardly behind Sasha. She's <i>good</i> at card games. She's good at everything, as far as he can tell, so it's not a surprise, but still. He hesitates. “...It's been quite a while.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Sasha says, glancing over her shoulder like she's half-expecting Azu and Hamid to be coming up the hill to join them at any moment. “I hope they're alright.”</p><p>Grizzop hesitates again. “D'you think we should—”</p><p>“Now you've gotta teach me how to shoot your bow.” Sasha says, and Grizzop's heart does four different complicated things at once, the combination of them all unexpectedly painful, and he tries very hard not to think about how wonderful it would be to show her. To give her that little connection to Artemis. “I don't like bosses” or no—maybe she'd get it then. She pauses, and her eyes light up. “Oh, wait. Bet your bow.” </p><p>Oh, dear. “Ah, um.” Grizzop fidgets in place. It's not like he's explicitly attached to <i>this</i> bow, and the thought of it makes her look positively gleeful, her eyes dancing with delight like she does when she's found a puzzle to solve, or managed to steal her way into somewhere she's not really supposed to be without anyone noticing. He really, really shouldn't, but. “Um.” </p><p>“No?” she asks, and her grin widens. Practically a dare. “Alright, then. If you don't have anything else to bet...” She pauses, visibly thinks about it, pauses again. “Strip poker?”</p><p>“What?” Grizzop asks, blinking. She's said it like she thinks it's the most unremarkable thing in the world. Like this is just something she does with people, and he's not been with the group <i>that</i> long, but he cannot imagine Hamid casually going along with a game of strip poker. </p><p>“Brock and I used to, sometimes,” she says, and her smile only falters for a moment as she says the name. He's not gotten quite all of the history there, but—it's a source of old pain, he's gathered that much. Someone that meant a lot to her that she lost. He's had enough loss to understand the feeling more intimately than he'd like. “We never had anything worth anything to bet.” She laughs, but in the sort of way she does sometimes when something's not actually funny and she's laughing because she feels like it's a funny thing to say rather than that she believes it. </p><p>“... Alright,” he says finally, and puts down his cards so she can reshuffle them. “So what're the rules.” </p><p>“Same as before, really,” she says, and her fingers shuffle through the cards so fast that they're only a blur, and no matter how he tries to focus on them he can't keep track of where they're all going. She's so good with her hands. He's been impressed by it a thousand different ways in the last few weeks. “Just take off something you're wearing when you lose.”</p><p>“<i>If</i> I lose,” he corrects, although with how things have been going so far, she's probably not wrong. </p><p>“If you lose,” she concedes, although now she's looking down at the cards as she deals them with a little smile, not making eye contact. It's hard to get a good read on it, but this time, he thinks she's thinking something might actually be funny. She doesn't force a laugh this time. </p><p>Before he knows it, she's got the cards dealt out, and he takes a deep breath and tries to ignore the way his heart rate is starting to kick up. This is <i>stupid</i>, practically speaking; they're surrounded by a bunch of objectively evil monsters in cages that might decide to give way at any moment, and at some point surely Hamid and Azu will be coming back. This is not a good time to get out of his armor. But Sasha looks so pleased with herself as she picks up her cards and surveys the hand she's dealt herself, and he finds himself wanting to go along. He's not very good at saying no where she's concerned. Starting to half-worry it's a habit that'll get him into trouble one of these days. </p><p>“What've you got?” she asks, and he looks down at his own hand. He's got basically nothing. Pair of sevens. </p><p>“Great hand,” he says, trying to lie through his teeth, and he thinks he mostly carries it off, but the next thing he knows they're putting down what they have and he's still got the two sevens and somehow she's got all four aces. Again. He could swear she <i>just</i> had that hand two rounds ago. Just lucky, he supposes, trying to suppress a sigh, and takes a quick look down at his clothing.</p><p>She looks from her hand to his and then gives him a meaningful glance, trying to raise one eyebrow and mostly just scrunching her brows a bit weird, and he sighs and starts unlacing his boots. They're the easiest first thing to lose. His breastplate would be next, but he's hoping he can get her out of a bit of hers before he gets there. To make it fair for the game, of course. She watches him carefully as he unlaces his boots and sets them aside, neatly tucked up against each other, and then deals out another hand, and he wiggles his newly-freed socked toes. It feels good to get out of his boots. If he wasn't in the middle of a job, a <i>hunt</i>, it'd feel like coming home after a long day to collapse into bed. </p><p>“Alright, Grizzop?” she asks as he looks over his cards and tries not to grimace. This hand is worse than the last, and she's not even trying to have a poker face, grinning like a shark as she looks down at her own. </p><p>The breastplate goes next. He kind of expected as much.</p><p>Genuinely, she's got a terrible poker face, but she doesn't need one, generally speaking; as far as he can tell, she just always seems to have good hands. For someone who doesn't want anything to do with the gods, her luck is <i>incredible</i>, and he tries to watch her carefully to see if she's palming a card, but if she is, he can't quite seem to catch her at it. She wins the next hand too, and he carefully starts unlacing his loose shirt and tosses it in a pile with his breastplate and boots, trying not to shiver at the sudden cooler air on his bare chest. She's pretending to look at her cards, but he's still watching closely, and just for a moment, he thinks he's caught her flicking her eyes up from them to look at him, half-bared to the world. He wishes his cheeks didn't flush so obviously. He can <i>feel</i> the green springing to them. </p><p>“Keep up,” she says, picking up her next hand, and then she very obviously frowns down at it. He lets himself grin then. He's not got much, three of a kind, but she doesn't seem like she's got <i>anything</i> this time, and by the time they've got the cards set down—she had only a pair of threes somehow—he's settling back all smug like he's been the one winning most of these hands and she's unlacing her cloak and setting it carefully by her side. </p><p>That cockiness lasts one hand, until he's looking down mournfully at his hand and she's pausing between rearranging her cards to toss a knife up in the air and then catch it as though she doesn't have a care in the world and doesn't need to think about them anymore. </p><p>“How did you get a <i>royal flush</i>,” he manages weakly, staring down at her cards, and she shrugs, like it's nothing, and nods her head towards him. He's down to socks, trousers, and pants, and nothing else, and so he goes for his socks this time, tucking his bare feet under him as he sits cross-legged on the floor. </p><p>Another hand. She looks down at her cards, frowns so obviously he'd almost think she was putting it on if he thought she was able to carry off that kind of acting, and mutters “<i>damn</i>” under her breath. He can't remember the last time he saw her out of her armor, but as she carefully unbuckles it and starts to pull it over her head, he can see a flash of skin at her waist, and the strange tension in the air goes from background noise he's been trying to ignore to something that makes his pulse kick up further. Her shirt is black and loose and only half-buttoned, and he can see the curve of her breasts, and he tries not to stare, but as she shifts to settle back down facing him she stretches in a way that makes the already loosely buttoned shirt strain, and he gulps. </p><p>“Think I'm getting better at this,” he says instead, swallowing once, twice, against the dryness in his throat, and she doesn't say anything as she deals out the next round, but he can see a faint flush rising to her cheeks too. He wants to reach out and <i>touch</i>, an impulse so sudden and strong he has to curl his hands into fists and let his claws dig into his palms to properly suppress it. This isn't what this is about. He thinks, anyway. It's honestly hard to tell with her at this point. </p><p>“Better,” she says, looking down at her next hand, and he gulps again and looks down at his own clothing. Just his trousers and his pants left, and then he's lost. But for once, he actually <i>does</i> have a good hand—a really good one, and even with her luck he's not sure she's going to win out, and when he puts down the full house, she seems genuinely surprised, eyes widening, blinking down at her own cards like she doesn't quite recognize them. </p><p>“Better,” he echoes, and his smile is all teeth. </p><p>“Right,” she says, and starts unbuttoning her shirt. Her fingers are nimble on the buttons, and from one blink to the next she goes from having a shirt on to tugging it off one arm and setting it aside, and then they're both shirtless, tucked close in a strange admin building that's half-wrecked from last night, facing each other, and even with the heat of the day considered, the room feels so much warmer than it did a moment ago. </p><p>He's trying very hard to pretend he's not looking, and mostly failing; she has a practical, plain black bra, the exact sort he'd imagined when he let himself think about it, and he can see a network of scars scattershot all over her bare skin, and her breasts are tiny and rounded, just the slightest curve and just the right size for someone with hands like his, and through the thin fabric he can see the little pebbled nubs of her nipples. His grip on his cards tightens. </p><p>“D'you think we should--” Grizzop glances at the windows again, as though Azu and Hamid will be there to help resolve the problem he is very rapidly beginning to have, but they continue to be alone in the building, and he hunches over, resting one arm on his knee and hoping that this awkward, contorted pose will hide the way he's starting to grow hard. Sasha is folded into a little ball across from him and doesn't look awkward with it at all; when she speaks it comes out fumbling, but the movements of her body are always smooth and sinuous, and no matter how strange her pose, she somehow always looks like she belongs in it. “It's been a <i>long</i> time.” </p><p>Sasha pauses, considering, and then her grin widens. “Afraid of losing?”</p><p>“<i>Never,</i>” he says, entirely on reflex. “C'mon. Next hand.” </p><p>She deals out the cards and he picks his up with hands that are nearly trembling, watching the way her body shifts out of the corner of his eye and then shaking his head, trying to focus on his cards. He's <i>good</i> at poker, damn it, regularly used to fleece the other trainees at the temple. He can do this.</p><p>… He can't do this. He looks at his hand, and it's <i>terrible</i>, outright unsalvageable, and no matter how hard he tries he can't get it to be any better. He turns away from her when he gets up to unbutton his trousers, in the hopes that it might spare him a fraction of dignity, but he's visibly half-hard, and no matter how carefully he tries to fold back down into his cross-legged pose and hunch over the rest of his body with his elbows, he knows she's got keen eyes. There's a faint flush at the tops of her cheekbones, and she doesn't say anything, but she does set her cards down entirely and put the deck aside. </p><p>“Mate, think—think you lost this one,” she says, and he wasn't sure if she was in this with him, but her voice comes out hoarse, lower than he's used to, and when his eyes meet hers there's a fire in them he's only seen in glimpses before. <i>Oh,</i> he thinks faintly. </p><p>“Guess so,” he says, and sends a quick prayer to Artemis that he's not about to spoil this one lovely bright spot in his life as he straightens up. Her eyes go from his face to his bare chest and <i>down</i>, and she sucks in a quick, sharp breath, and then all at once they're both moving forward, pure physical reaction, and their teeth collide awkwardly when he reaches up to pull her down into a kiss, his hands winding into her hair, careful not to dig in with his claws, and of course it would be awkward at first, the two of them learning this dance, but between one breath and the next they find the rhythm of it. </p><p>“Oh, fuck,” he says, his voice cracking, and she grins, short and sharp, and holds onto his ears for lack of anything else to grip and kisses him again. She's more forceful than he expected. She kisses like it's a fight, and the affection already washing through him every time he looks at her intensifies, sharpens. He'd always hoped, when he did this with someone for real, that it would be like sparring, and with her, it <i>is</i>. Her teeth dig into his lip and drag, a little spark of pain, and his fingers tighten in her hair as he bites back, his own teeth leaving a faint streak of crimson behind that only seems to embolden her further. </p><p>“Yeah?” he asks, and she nods, and then he lets himself reach out, <i>finally,</i> and cup her lovely, tiny handfuls of breasts with his hands, and they are just as soft and perfect as they look. He brushes a thumb across where her nipples are hard through her bra, and she shivers, a graceful, whole-body motion, and he wants to get his mouth on her so badly he aches with it. She lets go of one ear just long enough to reach behind herself and unclasp her bra one-handed and tug it free, and then pushes his hands up underneath the freed fabric until they are skin on skin, and he lets just the edge of a claw drag ever so gently across the peak of one nipple. He knew, on some level, that she would be quiet like this, and so the quick, sharp inhale of breath feels as loud in the silence of the room as if she'd moaned aloud. </p><p>“You're good,” she mumbles, holding onto his ears harder as she kisses him again, and he can't suppress a shiver of his own. His ears have always been sensitive, especially at the base, and her hands are perfect pressure on them and she doesn't even realize. His plea for <i>more</i> is muffled into her mouth, against her clever tongue, but she has the rhythm of it, and as the kiss deepens, they shift closer together, until his hands are tucked between them but he's half-sitting in her lap, grinding the stiff line of his cock against her belly, and one of her hands slides down from his ear to the small of his back, encouraging him to grind against her harder. He's not going to last like this, but he can go again, as many times as she likes, and he wraps his thighs around her middle and rocks down with his hips, relishing the soft hiss she lets out at the movement. </p><p>“Sasha,” he says, and he lets himself look up at her face, her reddened cheeks and secret little smile, so faint that if he didn't know to look for it he would miss it, and then her mouth is on his again and he is craning his neck up to meet her, her hands running down his back as he rubs his cock against the swell at the very base of her belly. He squeezes his eyes shut against the short, shocky bursts of pleasure with every movement, wrapping his arms around her waist and then letting them move down further, teasing at the edges of her waistband. </p><p>“Let me--” she breaks the kiss, panting, and reaches down between them to start working at the button of her trousers, the backs of her hands brushing against Grizzop's straining cock as she does, and he cries out, unable to hold it in any longer. She grins down at him and drops a quick kiss to the top of his head and then pushes him backwards onto the floor with both hands, getting unsteadily to her feet to shuck her trousers. Grizzop is still in his pants, although there is a steadily growing damp patch in the fabric, and he has to squeeze his eyes closed at the drag of fabric against his cock as he pushes them down and off to the side with the rest of his clothing, and then, with the distraction removed, he can watch Sasha properly, sliding her trousers and pants down with a quick wiggle and tossing them behind herself without looking. They land exactly on top of the rest of her clothes.</p><p>Of course they do. He'd expect no less from her.</p><p>When he pulls her in again, her bare skin is burning against him, so hot he can't think of anything but how she feels, and he grinds down into her again entirely on reflex, his bare cock dragging along the skin of her belly and leaving faint slick trails behind. “I--” he begins, because he can feel how close to the edge he is like this, how it will take nothing at all from her to push him over, and maybe she doesn't want--</p><p>She slides both hands down to his arse and pulls him into her harder, and her hands are small for a human's, but they can still cup him perfectly, and just like that, he's gone, leaving a mess all over her lower belly with every desperate, shaky judder of his hips. </p><p>“Done?” she asks, and there's an undertone of disappointment in her voice, but it fades away when he shakes his head and fights against the overstimulation to grind against her again; he's still hard, probably still will be for a couple more rounds yet, and in her eyes is the greedy gleam she gets sometimes when they get offered really good rewards. He tips his head up and gasps in a desperate breath of air. </p><p>“Let me,” he says, when he's able to speak properly again, and starts to shift back, and she lets him, her hands sliding up the length of his back to his shoulders, his neck, until she's let him go properly. He kneels before her, folding over himself, his hands reaching out for her thighs to spread them, claws digging in just enough to leave little tiny red pinpricks behind him, and she gets the idea. </p><p>“Alright, Grizzop,” she breathes, spreading her legs wider as he dives in, one careful hand on her inner thigh and the other reaching out to hold her open as his tongue, longer than a human's would be, dips in to lap at her clit. She grips at his ears again, holding onto them tight, and when she moves his head closer with her grip, he goes. She's so wet; he can smell it, taste it, it surrounds all of his senses like this, and he carefully moves to fit his lips over her clit and <i>suck</i>, and finally, <i>finally</i>, he gets a real noise out of her that isn't just a surprised puff of air. She moans, high and reedy, and then coughs, like she wasn't expecting it, and he grins against her and flicks his tongue sharp and fast over the tip of her clit as she squirms and clutches at his ears hard enough that it would make his eyes cross if he had them open. His hand strokes over the core of her, from the underside of her clit down, and when he slips one careful finger into her, his thumb still tucked against the underside of her clit and his tongue running along the top, she gives a full-body shudder and her thighs tighten against his head. </p><p>“Grizzop,” she manages, and the fingers holding him in place bite down with nails as he works her over with his tongue until she's crying out softly with every movement, his fingers fucking in and out of her and his tongue dipping down for everything it can taste. When she comes the first time, her thighs squeezing around him so tight it almost hurts for a moment, he flicks his eyes up to her; hers are closed, her head tipped back to expose the long curve of her neck, sweat beading on her skin. She doesn't protest when he gets back to it, the movement of his fingers easier, wetter, obscene and loud in the silence of the room. </p><p>He lets go of her thigh with his other hand and reaches down to wrap it around his own cock, trying to stave off the ache as he licks at her, and it takes nothing at all to bring himself right back to the edge again and hold there, aching, letting himself ride the crest of it, and then her fingers tighten on his ears again, stroking over the length of them, and he's gone too. His mouth goes messy and uncoordinated, more pushing against her clit than flicking his tongue with any real purpose, but she keeps her grip on his ears and grinds against his face with a sinuous movement of her hips and he can feel the spasms as she comes again too. </p><p>“Again?” he asks, his voice a wreck, and he licks at his lips, the whole lower half of his face a mess from her, and past their panting breaths, there is a sudden noise that doesn't come from either of them.</p><p>“Grizzop?” a voice he can't quite place calls, and they both freeze.</p><p>“Ah, fuck,” Grizzop says, and drops a quick kiss to the curve of Sasha's stomach before drawing back and reaching for his clothes.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"I lost those hands on purpose," Sasha admits to Grizzop at some point later. He doesn't have it in him to be surprised.</p></blockquote><div class="children module" id="children">
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